Netflix UK: best series and films to watch in 2025

Kevin Costner as John Dutton in Yellowstone

(Image credit: TCD / Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo)

last updated 12 February 2025

There is plenty on Netflix to get you through the cold winter months, from "juicy" political thrillers to dystopian tales.

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When DI Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar, who plays Louisa in "Slow Horses") finally decides to date again, 11 years after her fiancé Josh (Ashley Waters) abandoned her, she is shocked to find that her first dating app match is him. This ninth Harlan Coben novel adaptation by Netflix has "enough action and twists to keep you watching until the bitter end", said Hayley Spencer in London's The Standard. It has all the best bits of its crime drama predecessors: "cliffhangers, gratuitous gore and juicy family revelations". And with a cast including Lenny Henry, Matt Willis and Steve Pemberton, you'll want to "gobble" it up.

CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) is back, "flubbing" his way around the world, "keeping America safe – but only just", said The Telegraph's Ed Power. In this second season of the spy thriller, he heads to Seoul to investigate the disappearance of a Korean woman who was looking into Russian activities on Sakhalin Island, a Moscow outpost north of Japan. But instead of solving it and coming straight home, he and his sidekick Janus (Kristian Bruun) "stumble into an even bigger conspiracy". It's "full of quick-fire humour" and "bantering dialogue", broken up with "flurries of action".

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The follow-up to the wildly successful first season of dystopian drama "Squid Game" was well worth waiting three years for, said Tim Glanfield in The Times. Player 456, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), is back and has been busy spending his $45.6 billion (£25 million) winnings on hiring people to track down the baddies behind the bloodthirsty annual tournament before more people die. This "isn't going to be a rinse-and-repeat exercise – this is a drama with a story to tell, and it's only just getting started". Watch it before the third season drops later this year.

This "intriguing" movie about a "vibrant new post-apocalyptic world" has been in the works for a long time and is due out in March, said T3. Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt team up as they make their way across an America destroyed years ago by a war with robots. The supporting cast is "unreal", with robots voiced by the likes of Woody Harrelson and Brian Cox. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo worked on "The Avengers" blockbusters, so hold out for some big-scale storytelling.

Paramount's hit show, which is into its fifth season, has come to Netflix for the first time. This "addictive drama" is "a bit like Succession", said Good Housekeeping, but with "a bit more action and set in the American West". The Dutton family and their Yellowstone ranch are at the heart of it and, "as the largest contiguous ranch in the US", it is fiercely protected by its owner John (Kevin Costner), who will do "whatever it takes to protect his land" from greedy developers.

This "juicy, eerily contemporary political thriller" features Robert De Niro as both star and executive producer. The six-part series follows what happens after a 9/11-style event occurs and a former president steps up to take control. The "urgent drama" feels "chillingly prescient", said Vanity Fair, and explores "misinformation, the presidency and cyberterrorism" – issues more relevant than ever as it drops just weeks after Trump's re-election.

Early signs suggest Guillermo del Toro's Netflix movie, due out later this year, will be "one of the film events of the year", said Radio Times. Nobody needs a plot refresher for "one of the most well-known stories of all time" but safe to say that del Toro won't "simply be rehashing the familiar tale as we know it". Dr Frankenstein himself will be played by Oscar Isaac (pilot Poe Dameron in "Star Wars"), while his monster will be Jacob Elordi ("Saltburn") after scheduling conflicts meant original pick Andrew Garfield had to pull out.

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